Pope Francis is summoning Catholics -- and all persons of good will -- to heed this message and to take action. And in the United States, no one has taken this call more to heart than the Nuns on the Bus.

This time they're spreading the good word on immigration reform. We caught up with the group's founder, Sister Simone Campbell, as this year's tour kicked off in Newark, New Jersey, just a short distance from Ellis Island, where so many immigrants first entered the United States.

Absorb daily news headlines, and one can conclude that "the common good," must be defended with great courage, wisdom and love. What is the solution? What is the remedy that can both prevent "activist burnout," and alleviate it when it occurs?

Many of the governors that are turning down Medicaid claim that they are pro-life and what I say is that they are only pro-birth. If you are pro-life in the richest nation on earth then folks who should have access to health care.

In the midst of a situation in which perpetuating the quagmire is in the best interests of both political parties, it's time for the pro-life movement to abandon its partisan approach to this issue. This is where Sister Simone Campbell emerges as a hero in this struggle.

I'd sure hate to be the anti-LGBT, anti-woman tantrum-prone cardinal following the sage, rabbinic and serenely exuberant Sister Simone Campbell at the Democratic National Convention. But Timothy Dolan did just that.

As an innocent bystander who watched from home and tried to follow the most important prime-time speeches and then channel surfed for different pundit reactions of both conventions, here is my assessment of the two presidential conventions of 2012.